Positive Signals From The Mixed Signal Market - A Market Analysis and Forecast

The rise in applications demanding increased connectivity and portability have converged to offer new opportunities for mixed signal ASICs. This has come primarily in the form of adding mixed signal functionality to what had been all-digital System-on-a-Chip (SoC) designs. This trend has also impacted the programmable logic market, most notably Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) where high speed Serializer-Deserializer (SerDes) channels have been added to facilitate high speed communications channels. The market opportunities for mixed signal ASICs and SoCs with mixed signal functionality are large today and will continue to grow into the future.

Semico Research Corp. today announced availability of the Semico 2010 Mixed Signal ASIC report Positive Signals From The Mixed Signal Market SC101-10, providing a five-year forecast for market revenues, unit shipments and ASPs segmented by major application category. The report analyzes design starts by process geometry for Mixed Signal ASICs, Performance SoCs, Value SoCs and Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs) and by device complexity by gate count. Lastly, it segments the market revenues, design start data and application category by region.

Rich Wawrzyniak, Senior Analyst, Semico Research Corp. noted that the expectation for ongoing growth in the mixed signal market is driven by two segments: the traditional mixed signal market comprised of low to mid-complexity devices mostly fabricated at larger process geometries and System-on-a-Chip (SoC) silicon that has some mixed signal functionality, increasingly fabricated at contemporary process geometries.

After declining 11.6% in 2009, mixed signal ASIC revenue is expected to grow by almost 20% in 2010 to $52.2 billion. Driving the trend to add some mixed signal functionality to SoCs that have largely been considered to be all-digital designs is the rise in portable, handheld applications that require connectivity and advanced power management features. An additional trend driving SoC designers towards the inclusion of mixed signal functionality onto their silicon solutions is the market pressure to offer increased performance and functionality, while at the same time integrating this complexity into ever fewer devices.